Review

Review Summary: 60's Psychedelic and 80's industrial mix and take us on a unnerving journey

Like most people my age I listened to Nine Inch Nails in high School, but unlike most people I decide to look a little deeper into the industrial genre. My search led to me discovering one of my favorite bands, Skinny Puppy. I found their Gothic horror movie take on music much more interesting than NIN angst driven sound. While Puppy was making its most creepy and blood drenched music, band members were working on a much more colorful side project called the Tear Garden. The Tear Garden formed in 1985 with cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy and Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots. A second reincarnation the band formed in 1992 with Dwayne Goettel and created an the unnerving psychedelic masterpiece The Last Man to Fly.

This album combines the great lyrics of Edward Ka-Spel with the soundscapes created by cEvin Key and company, which are surprisingly vivid and full of life. At a first listen The Last Man to Fly may just sound like want-to-be 60’s psychedelic but after continuous listening and attention to the lyrics the album gives off a strong sense of paranoia and industrial experimentation. A good example of this is Romulus and Venus, which at first sounds at first like a love song, but the lyrics describe someone desperately trying to get away from a woman. Songs like Empathy with the Devil and Isis Veiled contain some of the most bizarre (in my opinion the best) lyrics on the album. The soundscapes on the album jump from dark and deary songs to crazed schizophrenic noises and samples and finally to beautiful and dreamy sequences. The Last Man to Fly was mostly formed by improvised jam sessions, which is surprising considering the consistency of the music.

BEST SONGS
Romulus and Venus
The Great Lie
Empathy With the Devil
Love Notes and Carnations
Isis Veiled
3-D Technicolour Scrambled Egg Trip Down The Hell-Hole (With Canary)